


After

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 13:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Angharad may never walk again, but the world ticks on around her.Written as a follow on to another piece.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a piece by manticoreimaginary on tumblr, which you can see over [Here](http://manticoreimaginary.tumblr.com/post/123242924089/essayofthoughts-manticoreimaginary-angharad). The italicised part at the start is hers.

> _Angharad never walks again but it hardly stops her. She sleeps through the next month or so and doesn’t remember getting back to the Citadel. By the time she wakes up, things have changed. The Council is in place by then, a little shaky but working none the less._
> 
> _Furiosa never wanted to lead. It’s not her style. It frustrates her sitting in some room and talking things through for hours. But Capable and Toast? Capable and Toast have gotten good at it and they work well together - Toast says the shit that needs to be said and Capable knows how to calm people down when it gets a little too heated. They brought in other voices to help them - there’s two of the Milking Mothers, there’s three of the Wretched, and there’s Corpus Colossus, who’s got a keen mind - keen enough to know who to side with when things change - and he knows the inner workings of the Citadel. He’s Important. Turns out they’re all Important._
> 
> _And then eventually Angharad joins them, brought in by Capable, carried by a War Boy until they finally build her a chair of her own that can be wheeled. Which is frustrating in a place which so many stairs and levels, but it’s better than sitting her her bed all day._
> 
> _(The Dag didn’t want any place on the Council. She’s too busy with the gardens, with making something Green and Alive.)_

In the evenings Capable comes to sit with her. Massages out burgeoning bedsores, and tickles between toes that can still  _feel_  even if they won’t move at her command any more. Capable still talks to her, and they watch the people milling below, creating new huts, and taking their carefully, fairly rationed water, and watch the War Boys handing it to them.

The War Boys have grown fond of Capable. When she’s not on the Council, or talking to Angharad, Capable is  _Mother Capable_  to them, from youngest to oldest. She helps solve their disputes, teaches the younger ones to read, and when she sees them growing lumps or bumps that mean the bone-deep sickness she takes them to Organic and has him cut them off, and sits with the War Boys while they recover. She is  _Mother Capable_  to them, and for the longest time Angharad doesn’t understand  _why._

It is is Toast who tells her of Nux, the War Boy who turned around, and made right wrongs, and Angharad knows what it is to do something in the memory of one who died.

(After all, they’d continued on for the Green Place when they’d thought she’d died, because they all knew that was what she wanted.)

Toast is  _The Lady Knowledge_ to the Boys, a title brought about from her name and her place on the Council, and they’re always surprised when they see her laugh. The Dag is  _The Lady of Seeds and Green_  to the Boys, and it was to she Capable had sent Sprocket, the War Boy with fingers black with grease, and a heart as well-meaning as anyone’s. He was a blackthumb more than a revhead, able to fix anything and prone to sticking his head in an engine and not coming up for air for hours while he tinkered. He’d fixed the old machinery in a matter of minutes, and helped the green and growing things flourish, though he himself remained weedy. 

Angharad is still  _Splendid_  to them,  _The Lady Most Splendid_ , and she doesn’t mind it so much when the Boys call her that, with nothing but respect. She survived death after all, and is always on wheels, and the Boys have taken to making motors and improvements to the motors so she can speed around more easily, and some have started building things for each of the stairs so she can climb them on her own.

Cheedo is the  _The Lady Fragile_  to them, and though she was quiet when first at the Citadel again - not that Angharad saw, sleeping as she was, and drip fed salt-and-sugar water - but working the fields with the Dag helped her. She is stronger now, not just emotionally but physically, and when he’s not working the fields, or worshipping the altar of  _Mother Capable_ , Sprocket follows her at a distance, ever-ready to help.

Furiosa is still furious, about many things, the deep and burning fury that never quite fades, but she rules them. The water, she said, had run for three days, before they had cut it off, and started issuing it in large and careful rations each day. The War Boys she charged to bring the tanks down had been careful not to spill a drop, and the youngest ones had run back and forth from the waiting people to the tanks of water, of Mother’s Milk (for some of the mother’s chose freely to give it still), and the lettuces and carrots that were harvested. Once these had been kept for the War Boys and the Imperators and dead Immortan Joe, but Furiosa is the only Imperator now, the only ruler, and the boys call her  _Imperator, our Imperator_  and the People follow. It makes Angharad smile to see Furiosa grumblingly accept the title. 

The rations work well, but on good days - harvests, after successful trades, on the anniversary of their return to the citadel - they let it run free. They had carved a great pool beneath the pipes, and they let the water run until it is full, and let the people and the War Boys both splash and play and scrub themselves clean. Capable has to nudge the youngest War Boys into trying it, into learning to swim, but at her urging, and the protective arms of their brothers, they do, and it makes Capable laugh. Some evenings after that Capable will bring one of the War Boys with her, the youngest ones, prone to getting chills in the water, sitting balanced on her hip. They watch Angharad with great round eyes, and eventually fall asleep, their heads on Capable’s shoulder. They talk on while the Boys sleep, until they each head to their own beds, and the child is passed to one of his brothers, and tucked in by great pale hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
